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I mean, if you offered 2 buses an hour. you’d probably get more people using them
would you wait 1/2 hour before using your car? The major obstacle for public transport use is frequency. I want to be able to decide to go and do something, pick up my house keys, wallet and coat, close the door, stroll to the bus stop and wait 30 secs to a minute before the bus I want shows up, and if I missed that one, another one will come along within 5 mins, otherwise, I'm using my car.
The major obstacle for public transport use is frequency. I
It's not.
It's the public.
They're awful.
... which is why it works so well in (say) London and so badly everywhere else.
The next bus is in 55 minutes? Sod it, It'll be quicker to walk.
RET pricing?
Road Equivalent Tariff - the concept used for ferry pricing (on Calmac by Scot Gov). I thought you'd be geeky enough to know how it works and translate it to a rail fare for me: https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/ferries/road-equivalent-tariff/
It was quite hard to find, but I eventually found this (which may be a couple of years out of date): https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-01137/ - £2 + £0.13 per mile - I think most people would say that was a good deal for a train fare? So there perhaps should be a question - why do we subsidise islanders to that level but not the rest of us?
why do we subsidise islanders to that level but not the rest of us?
Wasn't the whole calmac purchasing fiasco just a money skimming scam?
Without the subsidy out would be difficult to drum up enough demand to need another ferry then you'd never get to have a preferred supplier and so on.
Poly - we do subsidise trains and also car drivers - and car drivers get the biggest subsidy by far
would you wait 1/2 hour before using your car?
No, i'd plan around catching the bus.
Unfortunately, where i am i have a bus every two hours into town and every two hours to the next village, which has nothing of any note in it, except a bus station to catch an onwards bus.
And due to travel times etc and poor scheduling in the evening, if i want to go shopping i either have 1 hour or 3, there's nothing to keep me in town for 3 hours.
If i want to go drinking, the funky evening timetable means i either start drinking at 2030 and catch a bus home at 2110, or 0150. So yeah. It's not good. Worst thing is we used to have a 8 buses an hour, 4 going each way. They got cancelled.
My ‘main road’ out is the M66 which leads to Accrington; on balance I think I’d rather be in Hull.
Accrington or Hull (or stay in Manchester)? It's a close run thing, but i think I'd rather be dead...
It doesn’t have to be that way. I have a bus route into town (and therefore to the central train station), what, 20m from my doorstep. My mortgage is ~£500/month for a 5-bedroom house.
Unfortunately, for much of the country, and much of many countries, that's exactly the way it is. My place is about 200k, to get a similar sized place in the city limits is basically twice that (i've just checked). But that's still a 45 minute walk and miles from a regular bus service. Meh.
would you wait 1/2 hour before using your car? The major obstacle for public transport use is frequency. I want to be able to decide to go and do something, pick up my house keys, wallet and coat, close the door, stroll to the bus stop and wait 30 secs to a minute before the bus I want shows up, and if I missed that one, another one will come along within 5 mins, otherwise, I’m using my car.
You can train (pun intended) your way out of that mindset though.
Chill out, leave for work a few minutes earlier, take a book (or your laptop), look around at the scenery/architecture/people. There's the whole cliché of "mindfulness" and just enjoying what your're doing/where you are for the sake of it, but the reason it's become popular is it's the antithesis of the modern "must be everywhere and must be there 5 minutes ago" mentality, which ultimately is what drives people to consider cars to be the only option, leading to traffic jams, stress and road rage.
When I broke my arm (three times in 2 years) I had to get the bus to work, it's 90min+ by the time I'd walked to the bus stop a few minutes early, to do something I can cycle in 40min or drive in 20. The world didn't end.
Bit of an extreme example, not many people are going to do that long term, but in reality all that it incurred was I listened to an hour extra of podcasts in the morning and watched an hours less TV in the evening.
You can train (pun intended) your way out of that mindset though.
sort of, I can happily choose to cycle in, it just needs a bit of planning, But I don't need to plan to go into town, I can decide, shrug on my coat, walk to the tram, and one will along directly. That's is why it's popular and convenient. If I had to look up the time table, check the weather, all that faff, I wouldn't. Here's the other thing though, If I need to go to B&Q, there's no buses that go there, and the tram stop that does is still a 1/2 hour walk away, and is a 7 stop one-change tram ride.
It's really not my mindset that's the issue, its the fact that we live in a society that's modelled almost entirely on using a car.
Accrington or Hull (or stay in Manchester)? It’s a close run thing, but i think I’d rather be dead…
...
My place is about 200k, to get a similar sized place in the city limits is basically twice that (i’ve just checked).
So you pay your money and you make your choice.
Your 200k property is more than I paid for this place and I have all the amenities I could want (bar a bloody train station) on my doorstep. Granted, I'm sure there are more up-market areas than East Lancashire, but I'll take it over paying half a million quid for half the house I have just to be in the 'city limits' wherever that is.
It genuinely staggers me that people would choose to do that, I thought that one of the side-effects from covid / lockdown was that folk would realise they could live somewhere with trees for less money than a rabbit hutch in London.
folk would realise they could live somewhere with trees for less money than a rabbit hutch in London.
Though for many many folks, the ones who realised that were the ones who could afford the rabbit hutch and a place with trees.
Turns out that most people on lower wages needed to live within striking distance of work because they actually have to go to work to put things together, in boxes, on supermarket shelves etc.
They also tend to be the ones who absolutely can't afford a rabbit hutch anywhere near a train station or a decent bus service.
The major obstacle for public transport use is frequency
Yes and no, the main obstacle is reliability although the two are quite closely connected.
Suppose you have 5 buses/trains an hour scheduled - that's frequent enough to the point where you can just turn up at the stop and expect to get a service within 12 minutes at most. But if you cancel a random 2 every hour and only supply 3 services, it's still (relatively) frequent but the unreliability means people won't trust it.
This is the issue that Avanti, TransPennine etc ran into with their "cancellations at 1 minute to midnight the previous day" trick (so the cancellations don't show up on the following days statistics). Yes there are multiple trains between Manchester and Leeds but up to half of them will be cancelled with zero notice. The remaining services are still frequent but they're unreliable.
There are weighted calculations for "generalised cost" which, confusingly, is not just the actual cost in terms of money spent on the trip but includes factors like waiting time, transfer time and so on.
Waiting is perceived quite negatively - a minute spent waiting is generally given a weight of twice that of a minute spent on board. If you've had to wait for longer than advertised or expected due to cancellations, late running etc, that's given an even higher weight because the stress and uncertainty caused to the passenger is considerably higher.
It genuinely staggers me that people would choose to do that, I thought that one of the side-effects from covid / lockdown was that folk would realise they could live somewhere with trees for less money than a rabbit hutch in London.
Errr, i already live in the middle of a forest. In a fairly wealthy part of a (foreign) country, with loads of relatively well paying jobs locally.
That's why i have no urge to move.
FWIW, similar houses in similar areas in the UK go for a lot more than what i'm paying here. There's a place in the village i was looking at moving to when we eventually emigrated, size, layout and location is comparable to what i'm in here, £850k, that's one reason (of many) why i'm 1000 miles from the UK and not coming back!
that’s one reason (of many) why i’m 1000 miles from the UK and not coming back!
It's mainly the accent though isn't it?
Only in East Lancs 😉
Rail tickets in the UK should have just 3 variables:
Location
Distance
Time of day
See disagree with two of those. Distance should be the only thing which dictates the price.
See disagree with two of those. Distance should be the only thing which dictates the price
Then your demand management is up the creek and you end up with wildly oversubscribed peak services which takes you straight back to "this is unpleasant, I'd rather drive".
You can use the higher rates that business travellers in peak time are willing/able to pay to subsidise the less busy parts of the day.
When BA did some research into prices for Concorde, they found that most flyers (who were almost all business/celebrity types) greatly overestimated the cost of the air fare. They didn't know the actual cost cos they all had PAs etc booking it for them.
So BA simply raised the ticket price to what the travellers thought it was.
Actually became a reasonably profitable service.
Turns out that most people on lower wages needed to live within striking distance of work because they actually have to go to work to put things together, in boxes, on supermarket shelves etc.
Whilst I take your point, other work is available. If your career is putting things on supermarket shelves there are two here (Lidl and Tesco) which are quicker to walk to from my house than drive to.
It you have to work in The City then you can probably afford something nice as you say. But if not, why not go put things in boxes somewhere where the cost of living isn't stupid? That's not necessity, it's a lifestyle choice.
Only in East Lancs 😉
Hey!
Errr, i already live in the middle of a forest. In a fairly wealthy part of a (foreign) country, with loads of relatively well paying jobs locally.
That’s why i have no urge to move.
FWIW, similar houses in similar areas in the UK go for a lot more than what i’m paying here.
Sounds ace. What's stopping everyone else from doing similar?
Where's "here" out of interest?
Distance should be the only thing which dictates the price.
Why? Because of your own sense of fair play? That's not really how it works really when capacity is limited. Because everyone will pile onto the same services at the same times and the trains would be empty at other times. Even more so than it is now.
You can use the higher rates that business travellers in peak time are willing/able to pay to subsidise the less busy parts of the day
Only many of them aren't "business travelers" they're just people trying to get to work and those are the people we want out of cars.
There's a capacity issue sure but "peak" travel time is just making it expensive to have a job.
The major obstacle for public transport use is frequency. I
It’s not.
It’s the public.
They’re awful.
I think that rather lets the cat out of the bag does it not? I often find in these debates that folk will look for excuses not to use public transport. I take it you have a private jet as well? Or never fly?
Last train journey I did I had a decent conversation about hill walking with the chap opposite. Had many interesting conversations on trains
Rail tickets in the UK should have just 3 variables:
Location
Distance
Time of day
For long distance IC then I would say Location and Distance/Destination.
For local/regional then they should not be rail tickets... they should be simply "tickets". Valid on all public transport from the start zone to the destination zone within the region. Same price any time of day.
It’s the public.
They’re awful.
They're much more awful when they are driving cars.
Only many of them aren’t “business travelers” they’re just people trying to get to work and those are the people we want out of cars.
There’s a capacity issue sure but “peak” travel time is just making it expensive to have a job.
Well and "peak" travel periods are based on an old working model now; the idea that better paid city boys (and girls) will be traveling Mon-Fri to attend a 9-5 jobs. But odds are that those best able to pay exorbitant ticket prices are WFH 9 days a fortnight and set their hours well enough to travel into the office off-peak on that one day they have to attend the traditional old office (and it's probably expenses anyway).
The people most affected by "peak" travel premium costs are more likely to be those on lower incomes in retail, hospitality or public services now, tied to in-person attendance at a set location with nobody offering them Bonuses...
I think you've just got to add travel inequality to the growing list of things that hit the less well off harder.
You could address it by abolishing peak travel and simplifying ticket pricing, go to a flat "XX pence per mile" pricing model across the whole country rather than randomly fluctuating ticket prices apparently not linked to the service being deliverd.
While we still have franchises their margins would capped at a maximum of Y% of ticket sales. everything else goes in the pot is then ring fenced for reinvestment in the railways and if those franchises want some of that cash for upgrades/maintenance it needs a costed tender and a plan to measure delivery against. That would soon put them off and hopefully we could just start re-nationalising rail once the subsidised business profits stop making sense. No doubt London would be the "special case" that breaks that idea...
Sounds ace. What’s stopping everyone else from doing similar?
Dunno, i wish i'd done it 10 years sooner, probably a matter of job availability, qualifications, language skills, fear, willingness to take a step into the unknown and now, to top it all off, Brexit. Designed by the corrupt, advertised by the dishonest, voted for by the easily led.
Where’s “here” out of interest?
Sweden, I'm just outside Göteborg.
It you have to work in The City then you can probably afford something nice as you say. But if not, why not go put things in boxes somewhere where the cost of living isn’t stupid? That’s not necessity, it’s a lifestyle choice.
Because stuff is not simple.
People have families, and other relationships they may need to maintain.
People in their families have their own requirements for jobs. There are plenty of jobs that are maybe not "well paid" but decent and not shit pay but require you on site and these may not be available where you are ona about.
Even because the "same" job in two places doesn't mean they are the same job. This comes up when some says "a teacher / nurse / whatever travels from A->B and another from B->A why don't they swap?" Because the people and the job are not the same.
Moving is incredibly expensive.
There are so many other reasons but we don't live in world of spherical cows.
I think that rather lets the cat out of the bag does it not?
what? That @dangeourbrain has a sense of humour?
Had many interesting conversations on trains
Sounds like my idea of hell. I get on a train for any distance, I'm taking headphones and a book.
Sweden, I’m just outside Göteborg.
Oh, nice!
Because stuff is not simple.
Sure. I could probably rattle off a dozen reasons why I am where I am, but few would stand up to scrutiny. The truth is that I live in Lancashire because I always have, which is the worst of reasons to do anything.
Only many of them aren’t “business travelers” they’re just people trying to get to work and those are the people we want out of cars.
There’s a capacity issue sure but “peak” travel time is just making it expensive to have a job.
But the peak time trains are still "peak", whether you frame it as a supply or a demand issue the problem is still there are only so many spaces on a train and more people want them. Lowering the prices would not get more people on the trains.
And whilst I'm sure there are exceptions:
Lower paid jobs tend to be evenly distributed.
Skilled/high paid jobs tend to cluster.
If you live in Brighton, work in investment banking, and want to commute to Canada Warf then there's a £6k season ticket for you.
If you live in Brighton, work in retail [superfluous padding to make these statements the same length] there's a high street in Brighton.
Lowering the prices would not get more people on the trains.
It won't?
I mean you've posted this comment on a thread started specifically because the OP was appalled by the cost of train travel, clearly there's an appetite for affordable train travel that's being reduced to some extent by cost, and pushing people back to using Cars as they're (arguably falsely) seen as the "cheaper" option.
If you live in Brighton, work in investment banking, and want to commute to Canada Warf then there’s a £6k season ticket for you.
If you live in Brighton, work in retail [superfluous padding to make these statements the same length] there’s a high street in Brighton.
And the plebs serving Frappuccino and paninis to the financial elite around Canada Water at lunch times? They still have to use the same costly transport options right, any kind of subsidy available for them?
I sort of feel like Public transport pricing should be driven solely by providing an accessible, affordable, quick means of getting around regardless of income or indeed the exclusivity of your planned destination, that in itself help stimulate economic activity right? fine the rich would get "cheap" transport, rubbing shoulders with the poor, but I'm sure they can find other ways to redistribute their ill-gotten incomes or pay for a car/parking in central London if sharing a train with the less wealthy is too much for them...
Telling the less well off to lower their expectations of geographical mobility and hence only search for work within striking distance of their doorstep seems a bit regressive to me...
Trains should be cheaper, they shouldn't be in the hands of commercial franchises run to make profits rather than deliver a service. They're less environmentally impactful (than cars), don't require users to obtain a licence or take on huge lease/HP/PCP costs. Affordable trains would allow workers more opportunities and employers access to a broader workforce, the only people 'winning' currently are train franchise shareholders...
Well if house prices and rents keep going up. People won’t be able to afford to work. Having a job will be a luxury. They’ll need to rely on benefits lest they become liable for their ££££ rent by getting that job at the coffee shop. So that might solve the problem. And coffee can be dispensed by vending machines anyway.
Lowering the prices would not get more people on the trains.
It won’t?
Price is not the key driver for ridership.
It's [b]a[/b] concern certainly but once you're getting into the difference between a £40 fare and a £50 fare, it's largely immaterial.
Reliability, frequency and convenience are bigger factors in ridership. If you have a train fare of only £5 between X and Y but cancellation rates are through the roof, late running is common and/or that service arrives at midnight, very few people will use it in spite of the low cost.
There are slight secondary issues too - business people tend to work on trains which they can't do if they drive so that is partially a factor.
This is less of an issue on flights where years of Ryanair and easyJet departures at 6am have sort of conditioned people to the idea that their once a year trip to the Costa del Chav *should* be inconvenient in order to be cheap!
It’s a concern certainly but once you’re getting into the difference between a £40 fare and a £50 fare, it’s largely immaterial.
But between a £50 and £5 fare?
I'd wager you'd get a more than 10 fold increase in passenger numbers.
At £40-50 you're already looking at expensive fares which make rail travel unaffordable for a lot of people.
It won’t?
No, because there's not the capacity to cary any more passengers at peak time.
If you can't get any more passengers on at peak times, why would you lower the price? For all the talk of lower passenger numbers post COVID there's still no seats available. At best it's down to 100% capacity rather than 150%.
And the plebs serving Frappuccino and paninis to the financial elite around Canada Water at lunch times? They still have to use the same costly transport options right, any kind of subsidy available for them?
Why would someone pay £6k p.a. to commute from Brighton to Canada Wharf to work in Starbucks?
They wouldn't, they'd work in Brighton, and someone from Shoreditch* who rode there on a fixie** will make you your artisan capichino on your way to your meeting of elite lizards on the 42nd floor.
*Non gentrified areas of east London are also available.
**Other Shoreditch stereotypes are available.
Same as the people in this office (Reading) commute here from anywhere between London, Portsmouth and Birmingham. The Tesco warehouse over the road on the other hand could be in Amsterdam at shift change time for all the bikes coming in and out.
*Non gentrified areas of east London are also available
Basildon?
No, because there’s not the capacity to cary any more passengers at peak time.
Tosh.
But you wouldn't be happy with that for £90 a day.
For £90 a year you'd put up with it.
On the cost front.
My return (bus/train/bus) to work would be about £18 a day using a monthly travel pass. It costs £13-14 in fuel in the car. So pretty similar.
The problem is the time it takes. 2:05 to get to work, 2:17 to get home. I also have to leave the house before 0530 to get to the office before 8. It takes less than an hour to drive. Of the 2+ hours on public transport each way only 80 minutes is moving, the rest is waiting time. I can also only work for 30 minutes (train) during the journey. If i get a seat. (the peak time trains are full most of the time.)
So i drive. I also have to ferry kids to and from school every other week. Which would add an hours travel on each end of the day. At least.
I know how long it takes to travel, because i've just filled in my tax return, and i'm allowed to claim a percentage of the fuel tax back if i can save over 2 hours a day by driving instead of using public transport. It's basically a "living in the wilderness where we don't have proper public transport tax rebate". I have colleagues who live further away, but closer to a station, who can't claim anything. Can even claim an amount for EV cars.
No, because there’s not the capacity to cary any more passengers at peak time.
Is that not just supply and demand? It'd be madness to lay on a 10-coach train every six minutes if footfall was three people an hour. Would there not be more rolling stock if more people wanted it?
(I genuinely don't know, can the infrastructure not cope with more regular / longer trains?)
Tosh.
But you wouldn’t be happy with that for £90 a day.
For £90 a year you’d put up with it.
Only if you put an absolute zero value on your own time.
I genuinely don’t know, can the infrastructure not cope with more regular / longer trains?
Not without longer platforms for longer trains or signaling upgrades to increace frequency as there has to be a clear section of track between each train.
and i’m allowed to claim a percentage of the fuel tax back if i can save over 2 hours a day by driving instead of using public transport
I can see that being popular, not many fast trains to London near chatsworth or Balmoral
Only if you put an absolute zero value on your own time.
But that's nothing to do with capacity
Would there not be more rolling stock if more people wanted it?
Ah, the public part of our privatised system won't let them do that...
But yes, you'd solve capacity issues in part by having more higher capacity cars e.g. there are no tables and far fewer seats on the tube, because it turns out being able to get on a train is much more important than being able to sit down on one to most people.
But that’s nothing to do with capacity
No, but it's everything to do with Cookeaa's assertion that the high fares are hitting low paid workers.
If you have six figure job in the City then a £6k season ticket and 3 hours a day commuting is worthwhile. If you have a job that you can get a similar paying job almost anywhere it isn't.
The OP was going to a meeting in London, not brewing Machiatos for people having meetings.
Nothing against Barristas, but just pointing out if you want a job making coffee, the price of a return ticket from Edinburgh to London isn't relavent to your job because your job is in Edinburgh.
The OP was going to a meeting in London, not brewing Machiatos for people having meetings.
Well the op is going to London for work yes, he's certainly not on a six figure salary unless you count the ones after the decimal point as well.
Nothing against Barristas, but just pointing out if you want a job making coffee, the price of a return ticket from Edinbrough to London isn’t relavent to your job.
But Evesham to London might be
If you have a job that you can get a similar paying job almost anywhere it isn’t.
Believe it or not a "similar paying job almost anywhere" can actually be really really hard to find.
I used to commute from Hull in a Friday to York then back on Sunday to work behind a bar on minimum wage, slept on a mates sofa every Saturday for a year because I couldn't actually get a job in our around Hull that I could get to.
That train ticket, with a rail card, was about 20% of my take home.
The only way it was viable was if I could pick up a Friday night 6-close then an open close Saturday Sunday so a 36-38 hour week over two and a bit days.
Trains, and train lines, are chuffing expensive to build/maintain. Genuinely complicated and sensetive engineering involved.
Ticket pricing is on a "demand bassed" model, so the more popular a route/service/train is, the more expensive it becomes. Hence why getting a ticket from a little-used station further away from your destination can be cheaper than a closer, more popular station.
They are also moving to a "singles only" ticketting system, where 2 singles will be the only option, and not outwards/returns.
I beleive generally Off-Peak tickets are any train after 9:30. So if you live between 2 stations, and the train you want stops at one at 9:28, and the other at 9:32, get the train from the second station!
Advance tickets are fine if you can guarantee getting a particular train, but if you miss it you then have to buy a whole new ticket, at "walk-up" pricing...
Use National Rail app for train times/prices/live train times etc. I think you can buy though there too, but I don't think it does split tickets.
If you have an "anytime" ticket, but from a start point before you joined the train, then just claim to have "broken" your journey. Many off-peak singles (for the return leg of a journey, in particular) are valid for several days. Anytime returns ave valid for 1 month I beleive.
just claim to have “broken” your journey
I think you'll find thatcher/blair/Boris/lynch did that.
Delete as applicable to your political persuasion.
Same as the people in this office (Reading)
Funnily enough I'm sat in the same town as you (WFH today) reaping the benefits of being middleclass(ish) and not needing to drag my arse to an underpaid job in a major conurbation using over-priced public transport (have you seen the prices for Reading busses?).
I don't generally need to travel into London for anything other than leisure purposes.
TBH the people I've encountered who "needed" to regularly visit London offices mostly seemed to need to do it for networking and/or lifestyle purposes, not actual productive work, but I'm not in finance and I'm not a senior management type/schmoozer so I suppose I'll never know.
Either way I still see the general cost of getting about as yet another thing that stifles economic activity and opportunities, especially for those without significant financial means.
As for lacking capacity? Isn't that at least partly down to who's running the trains?
If demand outstrips supply (especially at peak/busy periods) then the shareholder's can rejoice, a more positive customer experience doesn't help the bottom line though so why would a franchise over invest?
Meh, Capacity can be added/reduced as demand changes more easily with Trains than many other forms of transport.
Many off-peak singles (for the return leg of a journey, in particular) are valid for several days. Anytime returns ave valid for 1 month I beleive.
Which is fine, but, as with a coach, there’s a big, empty gap between the last train out, and the first, off-peak train, which means having to cough up £50-60 for a cheap B&B, or sit on the station for nine and a half hours, or pay through the nose for catching the earliest train back. All of which adds a huge amount of money to what should be a one day trip to London, in my case, and time as well.
Going to London for a show, that finishes at around 11pm, then getting back to the station, should mean I ought to be able to get a train around midnight. But no, 11.32 is the last one, and a coach is 11.00. Am I being unreasonable in expecting national transport systems running services that might be convenient for their customers?
At least driving I’ll be home by around 2am, not the next sodding lunchtime, having spent an additional £150-200 for the privilege.
It needs big investment in the network.
All major cities should only have electric trains, 120mph+
Welded rail on any line over 80mph.
Automatic signalling across the entire network.
Then it will have more capacity to schedule extra services
Am I being unreasonable in expecting national transport systems running services that might be convenient for their customers?
Give by how quiet late trains from London are, in my experience, it's not convenient for all that many customers.
(I genuinely don’t know, can the infrastructure not cope with more regular / longer trains?)
I have inferred from the fact that a 3 minute delay at the origin station can turn into a 20 minute delay in 50 miles or so, that yes at least around here we are running absolutely at capacity. As soon as the train isn't where it's supposed to be it starts getting delayed by everything else as there's no slack in the system.
Am I being unreasonable in expecting national transport systems running services that might be convenient for their customers?
It's probably not a coincidence that many services terminate just before traditional pub kicking-out time. They're likely loss-leaders on maintenance and cleanup costs.
It's the long distance services that seem to stop around 11 or so, many local (or regional) train services do go on after pub closing time, at least in the parts of the country I am more familiar with, usually to around mid-night.
The old BR days of long-distance night trains seems to have passed into oblivion unfortunately, I remember a Bristol to Glasgow overnight train I was on in 1986, not a sleeper just a regular train, and bankers coming on for the Lickey...
And in true modern form the Largs - Glasgow service is going to have the 0742 service axed meaning you have to leave for Glasgow at 0723 to get there for 0900. If I miss that it'll be 0913 before I get into Central or of course I could play it safe and get the ONLY service before that at 0625. But don't worry, Scotrail have made sure you're not hanging about with your thumb up your arse for too long as they're increasing the journey time to up to 1h6m so that the poor dears on the Ayr line with 2tph don't have to stop at the smaller stations.
I get that this is very much a "me" problem but the new timetable means I'll need to leave work 15 minutes early to make the closest train or else hang about in Glasgow for 40 minutes before a train that takes 58m on a good day. I could literally drive the journey twice in that time and for £16.60 return I can drive for less as well (£5.70 for park and ride with ticket at Subway, £7.83 in diesel and a few pence depreciation and wear costs). How is this supposed to encourage anyone to take public transport?
How is this supposed to encourage anyone to take public transport?
It's not..the government doesn't give a crap and the train companies are trying to make the best of it as their profits are siphoned off.
Squirrelking is in Scotland - the Scots government have been trying to do what they can within the limits they have. Profits ( not that there are really any) also stay in Scots government hands
I see they are blaming (amongst other things) Covid.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we faced well publicised challenges with its driver training programme. Approximately 160 trainees in the driver training programme had their training suspended for 15 months as it was not possible to practice physical distancing in a train driving cab.
Though funnily enough Covid didn't stop me sharing a car with random other employees for the entire duration of Covid. And I didn't catch Covid at work.
Poor service is just a fact of life with public transport. Compared to a car it will rarely be as fast or convenient. Running rush hour commuter services when the roads are busy and city centre parking expensive is the ideal scenario for the train to beat the car.
IRC - rather a differnce between a private citizen taking risks and a workplace exposing their staff to risk against government advice
Squirrelking is in Scotland
I mean, he was right with the first bit:
It’s not..the government doesn’t give a crap
If they did they could be doing so much more to encourage folk out of cars. But they don't.
Profits ( not that there are really any)
Really? I thought Abellio were sending millions home to NS during their tender, ripped off from Hard Working Scots! You're not really telling me Scotrail is a bloody shambles and couldn't run a bath never mind a train service are you?
At least the message is getting out there, hopefully expectations will finally be managed accordingly. Or Scotrail will finally get the kicking they've always deserved now there's not a franchiser to hide behind.
I use the trains a lot and find them good.
Abeilio took a profit but that was after subsidies IIRC.
Now its back in state hands the subsidy and profits are from the same pocket so cancel out
and the train companies are trying to make the best of it as their profits are siphoned off.
The only people siphoning off any profits would be the Scottish Government, as the Railways in Scotland are state owned.
Not that there are any profits anyway. There are no privately owned train running Companies any more. (apart from the open access ones). The Government own all of them, and use the name on the trains as a management company for a fixed fee.
Really? I thought Abellio were sending millions home to NS during their tender, ripped off from Hard Working Scots! You’re not really telling me Scotrail is a bloody shambles and couldn’t run a bath never mind a train service are you?
Get ready for another hit. Serco have been relieved of their Sleeper train franchise, so now Scotrail will be paying an extra £8 million or so a year to subsidise it,when they, or a sister organisation run it. Serco have lost £65million over the last 8 years.
Abeilio took a profit but that was after subsidies IIRC.
No, they didn't. The cancellation was as big a win for them as it was the government, they still do the same back of house admin as before but no longer have to be the public punching bag for Scotrail and Network Rails screw ups.
Serco have lost £65million over the last 8 years.
Hardly surprising, they brought a load of new stock in (I think, did those carriages from Canada ever turn up?) and in the meantime quadrupled the price of a berth. It doesn't make any sense to take the sleeper now.
IRC – rather a differnce between a private citizen taking risks and a workplace exposing their staff to risk against government advice
Where did I say it was my car? I work for the NHS. I shared an NHS car with a different employee every shift. I saw the police with 2 cops per car during Covid as well. Tradesmen. etc. So govt advice was obviously not a blanket ban and plenty people just got on with it, private and public sector..
Seems to me that if a train driver trainee could have been paired with the same instructor for in cab training the risk would have been low and justifiable unless either was medically vulnerable. Certainly after initial lockdown once we had a better idea of risks. Not zero risk but nothing is.
No skin off my nose as I hardly use trains and a driver shortage doesn't affect me but I'm not suggesting anything that isn't lower than the risk I was exposed to for the entire pandemic without getting Covid. The only time I got it I had been on holiday for a week before so it wasn't caught at work.
Is the difference essential service v non essential? It was not a ban - it was advice. Under HSE you must make mitigation and balance that against risk and also need. Its called risk assessment.
Maintaining a supply of drivers is pretty essential. Ask train users.
No skin off my nose as I hardly use trains and a driver shortage doesn’t affect me
Do you drive at anything approaching peak times?
If you do, you’ll be affected by the extra traffic, as people who can’t catch their train drive instead.
Or get their other half to collect them.
Ukrainain trains are more punctual than Trans Pennine, and not by some statistically insignificant margin, only half of Trans Pennine trains make it on time compared to 95% of trains in a country that's actually at war,
which frankly, is ****ing shameful
I agree our trains aren't punctual but there's context to it. Punctuality is heavily impacted by the interdependency and complexity of your network. For example, in Germany I used to get a train to work that was on a single branch line with only a couple of physical trains on it shuffling back and forth and no junctions. It was even single track with a few passing loops. If one train had some issue, then no other trains were affected and it could eliminate the delay whilst waiting at the terminus. In the UK rail network a delay in one spot ripples through the entire network for the rest of the day, there's no slack that can be used to reset everything until the trains stop at night. There's not much we can do about that except build new lines to increase capacity - and look at the fuss that causes. Ok so perhaps changing the way we do signalling would help but that's not easy. Our transport network has a lot of legacy issues that can't easily be solved even with money, and sure as hell can't be without.
Now I don't know about the Ukraine network, it probably is better run anyway, but it may well have been better planned to begin with and it may not be running at 100% capacity which would give it a big advantage in remaining punctual, war or not.
I'm not defending how UK railways are managed centrally but there's more to it than simply being 'shit'.
In Germany if a train is late then that's that. If you're in for the long haul then you're better getting off and getting on whatever is behind you as its going to have priority. So I hear.
Do you drive at anything approaching peak times?
Nope. Work shifts off peak and time my leisure driving to avoid peaks.
It’s probably not a coincidence that many services terminate just before traditional pub kicking-out time. They’re likely loss-leaders on maintenance and cleanup costs.
I wouldn’t imagine that a GWR mainline train from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads would be concerned by that, considering the last train out of Paddington, as I pointed out, leaves at 11.32pm, most pubs are 11.00. They’re not like the last local bus, you know! Pub closing times are irrelevant to a mainline train operator.
It’s the fact that the last National Coach is 11.00pm pisses me off!
Actually that time isn’t true; I’ve just checked, it’s 22.30! The next coach is 07.00. Jeezus wept. 😖
Oh, and Megabus doesn’t stop in Chippenham anymore, the nearest stop is Bath, 12 miles away.
Yes, of course use public transport, instead of the car! In som parallel universe.
in Vic they just made all the trains a maximum fare of 9.60 anywhere. longest ride you can do takes 24 hours.
Is that within the state or into a neighbour?
I checked the time of the run from North Greenwich to Paddington, it’s 26 minutes with one change, so in order to get back to Paddington for the 11.32, I’d need to be out of the O2 and onto the tube by a bit before 11.00, preferably by 10.50. I don’t want to miss any of the performance, it’s costing me enough as it is, so I’ll be doing as much checking of performance length and start times as I can before making my mind up how I travel.
I’d much rather go by train, it takes about the same amount of time, but I don’t have to concentrate on the driving for two hours.
Having said that, I’ve got a thirty minute walk home from the station at around 1.30am. Not much fun if it’s raining.
Oh well, I’ve got until near the end of June to decide.
its just in Victoria, but lots of other states are looking at it.
Well I'm sat on the train - which is now two trains as they cancelled the one in front but I digress - and lner have put a smile on my face.
"the next stop is Grantham, change here for trains to
Skegness"
Skegness being said in the sort of mock erotic voice that suggests it was recorded by joanna lumley mid way through an M&S add. This isn't just ness, this is Skegness .
I thought their timetables and performance numbers were misleading but they've nothing on a pronunciation that can make you think of Skegy as the sort of picture perfect idyll promoted in breathy awe by beautiful YouTube travel influencers.